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Who was James Foley?

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Story highlights

Foley had been reporting from war-torn countries for four years when he disappeared

He spent time as a teacher in the Teach for America program in 1996 in Phoenix

One friend described Foley as a "funny, warm, Big Lebowski-loving guy"

When war reporter James Foley wasn't writing for GlobalPost or recording video for AFP or appearing on the PBS "NewsHour," he occasionally shared stories on his own blog, aptly titled "A World of Troubles."

For a subtitle, he chose the famous Carl von Clausewitz sentence "War is fought by human beings."

And that is exactly what Foley sought to show with his reporting: humanity amid the horror of war.

Foley was abducted while on a reporting trip in northern Syria in November 2012. He was never heard from again.

A video published Tuesday by the extremist group ISIS showed Foley being beheaded. It is not known when or where the video was recorded.

For Foley's family and friends, the recording was the answer they hoped they'd never hear to their questions about his disappearance.

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James Foley's work as war journalist

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"We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people," his mother, Diane, said Tuesday night.

She called him "an extraordinary son, brother, journalist and person."

In a televised statement Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama credited Foley with "courageously reporting" from Syria and "bearing witness to the lives of people a world away."

"Jim was taken from us in an act of violence that shocks the conscience of the entire world," Obama said.

Shortly before he spoke, the president talked by phone with Foley's parents. At a subsequent news conference on their front lawn, the parents were asked why Foley decided to travel to dangerous locales. "Why do firemen go back into a blazing home? It was his job," John Foley answered.

Friend: Foley was more than a journalist

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Foley was freed six weeks later. Afterward, in a video interview with the Boston Globe, he hesitated to make the story about himself, remarking at one point that "you don't want to be defined as 'that guy who got captured in 2011.'"

"I believe that front-line journalism is important, you know -- without these photos and videos and first-hand experience, we can't really tell the world how bad it might be," he said.

"That changed him," GlobalPost co-founder Charlie Sennot said Wednesday of Foley's capture in Libya. "That changed his sense of the calculus of risk, but it didn't change his passion for what he wanted to do."

One of the journalists detained with Foley in Libya, Clare Morgana Gillis, said his fundraising for Hammerl's family was "the same impulse that compelled him to cut short his much-needed break from reporting in Syria when a colleague went missing last summer, and to raise money for an ambulance for Aleppo's Dar al-Shifa field hospital, where he spent weeks filming the plight of doctors who struggled to save lives with minimal space equipment."

His time as a teacher

For Foley, these were acts of service, not entirely unlike his time spent in the Teach for America program. He began teaching in Phoenix in 1996.

"He'd promise students that he'd take them to the Castles and Coasters amusement park if they would come to class everyday," a fellow Teach for America alum, Sarah Fang, recalled in an essay in 2013.

Foley later "taught reading and writing to inmates at the Cook County Sheriff's Boot Camp in Chicago," according to a Columbia Journalism Review feature about him.

Turkish mourners grieve over a coffin during a funeral ceremony in Gaziantep on Tuesday, July 21, for the victims of a suspected ISIS suicide bomb attack. That bombing killed at least 31 people Monday, July 20, in Suruc, a Turkish town that borders Syria. Turkish authorities have blamed the terror group for the attack.

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Protesters turn out with anti-ISIS banners and flags to show support for victims of the Suruc suicide blast during a demonstration July 20 in Istanbul.

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People in Ashmoun, Egypt, carry the coffin for 1st Lt. Mohammed Ashraf, who was killed when the ISIS militant group attacked Egyptian military checkpoints on Wednesday, July 1. At least 17 soldiers were reportedly killed, and 30 were injured.

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Syrians wait near the Turkish border during clashes between ISIS and Kurdish armed groups in Kobani, Syria, on Thursday, June 25. The photo was taken in Sanliurfa, Turkey. ISIS militants disguised as Kurdish security forces infiltrated Kobani on Thursday and killed "many civilians," said a spokesman for the Kurds in Kobani.

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Residents examine a damaged mosque after an Iraqi Air Force bombing in the ISIS-seized city of Falluja, Iraq, on Sunday, May 31. At least six were killed and nine others wounded during the bombing.

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People search through debris after an explosion at a Shiite mosque in Qatif, Saudi Arabia, on Friday, May 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, according to tweets from ISIS supporters, which included a formal statement from ISIS detailing the operation.

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Iraqi soldiers fire their weapons toward ISIS group positions in the Garma district, west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, on Sunday, April 26. Pro-government forces said they had recently made advances on areas held by Islamist jihadists.

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A member of Afghanistan's security forces stands at the site where a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in front of the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on April 18. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. The explosion killed at least 33 people and injured more than 100 others, a public health spokesman said.

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Iraqi counterterrorism forces patrol in Ramadi on April 18. Iraqi special forces maintained control of the provincial capital after days of intense clashes with ISIS left the city at risk.

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Thousands of Iraqis cross a bridge over the Euphrates River to Baghdad as they flee Ramadi on Friday, April 17.

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Yazidis embrace after being released by ISIS south of Kirkuk, Iraq, on Wednesday, April 8. ISIS released more than 200 Yazidis, a minority group whose members were killed, captured and displaced when the Islamist terror organization overtook their towns in northern Iraq last summer, officials said.

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Kurdish Peshmerga forces help Yazidis as they arrive at a medical center in Altun Kupri, Iraq, on April 8.

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A Yazidi woman mourns for the death of her husband and children by ISIS after being released south of Kirkuk on April 8.

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People in Tikrit inspect what used to be a palace of former President Saddam Hussein on April 3.

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On April 1, Shiite militiamen celebrate the retaking of Tikrit, which had been under ISIS control since June. The push into Tikrit came days after U.S.-led airstrikes targeted ISIS bases around the city.

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Iraqi security forces launch a rocket against ISIS positions in Tikrit on Monday, March 30.

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The parents of 19-year-old Mohammed Musallam react at the family's home in the East Jerusalem Jewish settlement of Neve Yaakov on Tuesday, March 10. ISIS released a video purportedly showing a young boy executing Musallam, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent who ISIS claimed infiltrated the group in Syria to spy for the Jewish state. Musallam's family told CNN that he had no ties with the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, and had, in fact, been recruited by ISIS.

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Iraqi Shiite fighters cover their ears as a rocket is launched during a clash with ISIS militants in the town of Al-Alam, Iraq, on Monday, March 9.

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Displaced Assyrian women who fled their homes due to ISIS attacks pray at a church on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, on Sunday, March 1. ISIS militants recently abducted at least 220 Assyrians in Syria.

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Safi al-Kasasbeh, right, receives condolences from tribal leaders at his home village near Karak, Jordan, on Wednesday, February 4. Al-Kasasbeh's son, Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh, was burned alive in a video that was recently released by ISIS militants. Jordan is one of a handful of Middle Eastern nations taking part in the U.S.-led military coalition against ISIS.

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A Kurdish marksman looks over a destroyed area of Kobani on Friday, January 30, after the city had been liberated from the ISIS militant group. The Syrian city, also known as Ayn al-Arab, had been under assault by ISIS since mid-September.

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Kurdish people celebrate in Suruc, Turkey, near the Turkish-Syrian border, after ISIS militants were expelled from Kobani on Tuesday, January 27.

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Collapsed buildings are seen in Kobani on January 27 after Kurdish forces took control of the town from ISIS.

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Junko Ishido, mother of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, reacts during a news conference in Tokyo on Friday, January 23. ISIS would later kill Goto and another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.

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ISIS militants are seen through a rifle's scope during clashes with Peshmerga fighters in Mosul, Iraq, on Wednesday, January 21.

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An elderly Yazidi man arrives in Kirkuk after being released by ISIS on Saturday, January 17. The militant group released about 200 Yazidis who were held captive for five months in Iraq. Almost all of the freed prisoners were in poor health and bore signs of abuse and neglect, Kurdish officials said.

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Smoke billows behind an ISIS sign during an Iraqi military operation to regain control of the town of Sadiyah, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on Tuesday, November 25.

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Fighters from the Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish People's Protection Units join forces to fight ISIS in Kobani on Wednesday, November 19.

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A picture taken from Turkey shows smoke rising after ISIS militants fired mortar shells toward an area controlled by Syrian Kurdish fighters near Kobani on Monday, November 3.

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Iraqi special forces search a house in Jurf al-Sakhar, Iraq, on Thursday, October 30, after retaking the area from ISIS.

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ISIS militants stand near the site of an airstrike near the Turkey-Syria border on Thursday, October 23. The United States and several Arab nations have been bombing ISIS targets in Syria to take out the militant group's ability to command, train and resupply its fighters.

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Kurdish fighters walk to positions as they combat ISIS forces in Kobani on Sunday, October 19.

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Heavy smoke rises in Kobani following an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition on October 18.

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Cundi Minaz, a female Kurdish fighter, is buried in a cemetery in the southeastern Turkish town of Suruc on Tuesday, October 14. Minaz was reportedly killed during clashes with ISIS militants in nearby Kobani.

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Kiymet Ergun, a Syrian Kurd, celebrates in Mursitpinar, Turkey, after an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition in Kobani on Monday, October 13.

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Alleged ISIS militants stand next to an ISIS flag atop a hill in Kobani on Monday, October 6.

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A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier who was wounded in a battle with ISIS is wheeled to the Zakho Emergency Hospital in Duhuk, Iraq, on Tuesday, September 30.

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Syrian Kurds wait near a border crossing in Suruc as they wait to return to their homes in Kobani on Sunday, September 28.

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A elderly man is carried after crossing the Syria-Turkey border near Suruc on Saturday, September 20.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fire at ISIS militant positions from their position on the top of Mount Zardak, east of Mosul, Iraq, on Tuesday, September 9.

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Displaced Iraqis receive clothes from a charity at a refugee camp near Feeshkhabour, Iraq, on Tuesday, August 19.

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Aziza Hamid, a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, cries for her father while she and some other Yazidi people are flown to safety Monday, August 11, after a dramatic rescue operation at Iraq's Mount Sinjar. A CNN crew was on the flight, which took diapers, milk, water and food to the site where as many as 70,000 people were trapped by ISIS. But only a few of them were able to fly back on the helicopter with the Iraqi Air Force and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.

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Thousands of Yazidis are escorted to safety by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and a People's Protection Unit in Mosul on Saturday, August 9.

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Thousands of Yazidi and Christian people flee Mosul on Wednesday, August 6, after the latest wave of ISIS advances.

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A Baiji oil refinery burns after an alleged ISIS attack in northern Selahaddin, Iraq, on Thursday, July 31.

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A Syrian rebel fighter lies on a stretcher at a makeshift hospital in Douma, Syria, on Wednesday, July 9. He was reportedly injured while fighting ISIS militants.

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Children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and ISIS militants in Mosul on Tuesday, June 10.

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In the mid-2000s he decided to pursue a journalism career, first by enrolling at Northwestern University's well-respected Medill School of Journalism and then by embedding with American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. While preparing for his first embed, he started his blog.

Foley freelanced for a number of news media outlets, including GlobalPost, a world news Web site founded in 2009.

Fang, who kept in touch with Foley after their years teaching in Phoenix, wrote that his interest in the story there did not surprise her.

"He's always been willing to step into a zone where no one else wants to go," she wrote. "Jim feels that society needs reporters willing to bear witness and report back the facts of history-in-the-making. And his loyalty to his colleagues meant that he wanted to be there with them on the frontlines."

BuzzFeed Middle East correspondent Sheera Frenkel said she last saw Foley about a week before his final trip into Syria.

Drinking beers at the lobby of a hotel popular among journalists, they talked, she said, about "how hard it was to move on from this job, into a life which would allow for marriage and family."

"He was a generous colleague, never holding back a tip, phone number, or detail that could help, and could spend hours talking over the ins and outs of a story to get it just right," Frenkel wrote in an email message.

"Jim was a great journalist, and I think he'd like to be remembered that way, first and foremost."

After the news of Foley's killing spread on Tuesday, CBS News foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward changed her profile picture on Twitter to a photo of Foley wearing a helmet, a flak jacket and holding up a camera.

This, she said, "is how I will chose to remember James -- as a brave and tireless journalist with a passion for the Syrian cause."